Quotes about Mortality

If we were immortal, we could legitimately postpone every action forever. [...] But in the face of death as absolute finis to our future and boundary to our possibilities, we are under the imperative of utilizing our lifetimes to the utmost, not letting the singular opportunities - whose finite sum constitutes the whole of life - pass by unused.

Men, in general, misunderstand the meaning of death. When the alarm clock goes off in the morning and frightens us from our dreams, we regard this awakening as a terrifying intrusion upon our dream world and do not realize that the alarm arouses us to our real existence, our day world. Do we mortals not act similarly, being frightened when death comes? Do we not also misunderstand that death awakens us to the true reality of ourselves?

Sometimes, one trembling star comes in the clear sky and makes me think the world beautiful and we maggots deforming even the trees with our lusts.

It is permissible even for a dying hero to think before he dies how men will speak of him hereafter. His fame lasts perhaps two thousand years. And what are two thousand years? (asked Mr Ramsay ironically, staring at the hedge). What, indeed, if you look from a mountain top down the long wastes of the ages? The very stone one kicks with one's boot will outlast Shakespeare.

That's what makes a view so sad, and so beautiful. It'll be there when we're not.

I strike spurs into my horse. Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!

I strike spurs into my horse. Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!

What, indeed, if you look from a mountain-top down the long wastes of the ages? The very stone one kicks with one's boot will outlast Shakespeare.

How terrible old age was, she thought; shearing off all one's faculties, one by one, but leaving something alive in the centre.

Friend, never fear dying. Dying is the last, but the least matter that a person has to be anxious about. Fear living, that is a hard battle to fight, a stern discipline to endure, a rough voyage to undergo ! Charles Spurgeon

You are too young to know how the world changes everyday,' said Mrs Creakle, 'and how the people in it pass away. But we all have to learn it, David; some of us when we are young, some of us when we are old, some of us at all times in our lives.

Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, Right Reverends and Wrong Reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with Heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day.